Pence Addresses Trump’s False Claim Former Presidents Pushed For Wall: It Was His ‘Impression’

Vice President Mike Pence sat with NBC News’ Hallie Jackson Monday, the video of which aired Tuesday morning on The TODAY Show.

Much of the conversation centered around the current government shutdown over border wall funding and Jackson challenged Vice President over President Donald Trump’s recent claim that former Presidents had privately admitted to him that they wished they had built a wall in the manner that Trump is demanding.

Turns out that no former president has confirmed Trump’s assertion which critics have used to point out what they see as the Commander in Chief’s troubling tendency for mendacity.

Jackson asked “Which former presidents told President Trump, as he said, that he should’ve built a wall? All their representatives have denied that that was the case.”

Pence stumbled a bit in response, saying “I know the president has said that that was his impression from previous administrations, previous presidents,” before adding “I know I’ve seen clips of previous presidents talking about the importance of border security, the importance of addressing illegal immigration.”

Jackson pushed back saying “that’s different from telling the president right?”

Pence then pivoted to the time-honored chestnut of what the American people wanted to discuss.

Pence’s answer raised a few eyebrows, best exemplified by NY Times’ Maggie Haberman who tweeted:

Not really sure that Pence intended this, but the implication is Trump couldn’t distinguish between his own impressions and objectively-held reality in the form of previous comments.